Category: joy

Abiding is such an old word that I don’t hear often enough. This word used to scare me to death. Growing up baptist, I thought God had a list of rules I had to abide by or I would get punished. I was terrified of everything that heavy word meant. It wasn’t until I switched churches, I realized God didn’t mean that word to use as a punishment for us.

Abide by definition means: follow structured series of spiritual instruction, exercises, prayer and encouragement to heal the hardest parts of your life. To heal the hardest parts of your life. I think of the hardest parts of my life and I think how much I want to be healed from the situations I’ve been in and am still battling every single day. There are days when you want to be someone else or be somewhere else. There are some days where you want relief and want to crawl in a hole just to hide from the hardest parts of your life. As I prayed over this post to help someone, I hope it helps me as well. I get it. There are days when you aren’t feeling like yourself. There are days when you pray to God to end your suffering. It won’t always be like this. I wanted to dig and dig and figure out what the Bible says about abiding. In John, Jesus talks to his disciples and says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.“
I’d like to think Jesus meant don’t let your head run wild in search for answers by trying to solve your own problems. Just stay calm and stay close. A branch can’t produce fruit without the vine. You can not face your problems and come up with solutions without Jesus. Instead of worrying and feeling anxious about what’s to come, whether it is financial stress, relationship issues or just the grind of every day life. Abide. Place your feet on the ground and stay with him. You deserve good things. You deserve all the blessings that God wants to shower you with. But dear, how are you going to look for and get those blessings if you are trying to grow fruit in a garden with no vines? In a life where Jesus isn’t the front runner of your race?

Only in the darkness do you know light. Maybe you’ve listened to that sad country song one too many times. I don’t know what battle you are facing. Maybe you feel left behind or forgotten. Maybe you’re sipping coffee reading this and wondering if God will ever show up for you. Maybe you can’t feel him like you used to. It’s okay if you don’t feel whole right now. It’s okay if you feel lost or confused. Just keep fighting the battle. I pray you abide in Jesus so he can abide in you. Stay so he can stay with you.

A friend told me recently that to be comfortable is to be stagnant. It made me think, who wants to be stagnant? I remember going camping with my parents around the age of 9. The hike took forever and my nine year old chunky self was not a fan. But, some of the lessons you learn when you’re young will play a huge role in your life later on, whether you realize it or not. On this trip, I went to fill up my water bottle with water that I could reach, that wasn’t ever-flowing, that was stagnant. My step dad grabbed the water bottle from me and told me never to drink stagnant water, that there are mosquitos surrounding it and it carries bacteria and to always drink running water because it is fresh and clean and always moving from deep in the mountain.

I thought about this after my friend told me that being comfortable is being stagnant. You don’t drink stagnant water because it can harm you, so why are people so comfortable living a stagnant life? Running water is beautiful, fresh and better for your well being. It can also be dangerous. Falling into powerful running water with a rip current can harm you if you aren’t careful and can take you under. But that’s the thing, you have to risk that chance in order to have fresh clean water without any bacteria that can harm you from the inside.

Being stagnant in life to many can seem appealing. There’s no rip current, no movement, no danger. But who is happy there? Jumping off a waterfall gives you more adrenaline than floating at the bottom. Constantly moving is something everyone should be doing. We should not remain stagnant. We should not be afraid of falling in and going under. We should take that leap and drink from that fresh current.

I like scary. More times than not, being scared of something leads to something great. Another level of yourself that you need reviled. I hope everyone who reads this picks the current. Swim against it, take a gulp of water from that mountain instead of safely filling your bottle up with shallow, dirty, non-fullfiling water. Choose. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the job you want? Is this the person you want to love? Choose. I used to think by the time I was 25 I would have it all figured out. I don’t. And that may be one of the biggest blessings in disguise.